Nintendo Forms Partnership with Sega, Announces Sonic: Lost World

At a Nintendo Direct conference today, Satoru Iwata formally announced that Nintendo has formed a partnership with Sega for the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise.

Along with the announcement, Iwata also confirmed that the next game would be releasing exclusively on the Wii U and the 3DS handheld system. No further details about the game were announced, but the Nintendo President said to stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks leading up to E3.

While Sega and Nintendo’s characters have teamed up in games in the past, this marks the first time a Sonic game will be released exclusively on Nintendo’s current platforms. This is also a surprising move, considering Sega’s financial woes over the past few years. How this will benefit the two companies respectively remains to be seen, but it’s likely we’ll know more details soon.

This comes on the heels of the latest announcement of a new Mario and Sonic: Winter Games title released in time for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic games, which is said to feature several new game modes, updated high definition graphics, and modes that allow you to blend elements of several different events together.

Nintendo worked with Sega most recently to acquire the rights to release Platinum Games’ Bayonetta 2 exclusively on the Wii U system. The two companies have worked together before on games such as Winter Games, but this sort of exclusivity on a franchise as large as Sonic the Hedgehog is an interesting development, especially considering the long and storied rivalry between the two companies from years past.

Alongside the Sonic partnership, Nintendo also announced that much of the Sega Game Gear’s software library will be releasing on the 3DS eShop and will be available to download soon. A handful of Game Gear games have been available on Nintendo’s downloadable space for some time now, but this will mark an influx of games put on the store for fans to have easy access to. Look for more about prices and release dates in the near future.